It is farcical to believe, for just one example, that the new bill will mean anything except more soul-crushing bargaining conditions currently "enjoyed" by the care sector's workers. And if we are not ensuring even our lowest-paid workers have better conditions, what's the point of the law change at all?
The problem in the aged-care sector goes beyond union-busting, of course: it boils down to the fact the Government has largely outsourced the care of the elderly, paying private operators a standard fee per client, and capped the amount the operator can charge on top of that. The larger operators have extensive property portfolios and so are actually very wealthy, while crying poor about not being able to pay their rest home staff (and refusing to allow union activity); but for the smaller operators, the problem is acute. They cannot make money from this half-arsed system, and are scraping through by paying their workers peanuts.
The only way any care workers are getting any traction in their wages these days is not through collective bargaining or some kind of accord between Government and the sector - it's through the courts. This week Lower Hutt care worker Kristine Bartlett triumphed in the Court of Appeal when it ruled that, after 14 years as a senior care-giver, being paid $14.23 an hour was appallingly low and the result of being a female. The implication of the ruling may see pay rises extended to thousands of others - 92 per cent of whom are women (men would get the pay rise too, naturally).
But the Government should know better by now. Bartlett's case follows on from the IHC debacle, where the organisation was forced into statutory management because it couldn't afford to pay "sleep over" backpay as ruled by the courts, such was the inadequacy of its funding. Right now, even more chaos and crying poor is assured as the union fights for the right of home support workers to be paid for travel between jobs.
There is no easy answer of course, but the broader issue needs immediate attention. By 2036, a quarter of New Zealanders will be over 65, and we'll need to have innovative solutions in place; like the villages built for dementia patients in the Netherlands; or "Hospital Hotels" that are being built in the UK; or adaptable housing being built where long-term solutions are a government's core business.
In New Zealand we are side-tracked at the moment by critical work redesigning the flag and designing anti-jihadist law.
Perhaps a better use of time would be figuring out how to attract and retain people who can see a career in aged-care, paying them properly, and sorting out ways in which people don't have to go to court each time they'd like to see equity in their pay scale.
And putting their pay aside, let's look at it another way: when you're in your final years, would you prefer to be cared for by someone paid a reasonable amount for a hard day's work, or someone scraping by on the bare minimum?
It's a question for all of us, if we're lucky enough to get there.
